


No Shoes, No Coat, No Pair of Socks

by boundbyspells



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-01
Updated: 2004-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boundbyspells/pseuds/boundbyspells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a brief sartorial not-history of River Tam</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Shoes, No Coat, No Pair of Socks

**Author's Note:**

> for Firefly Friday's shoe challenge

She came aboard the ship with nothing, though social convention (which  
is gab-gab-gabbling in everyone's head) says that she should have something,  
and it has to cover her in at least two parts, over the parts the gun-man  
wants to see especially bad and over the parts that Mother always said  
that should only be touched for washing, even though Simon had said that  
it was perfectly natural for a girl to touch them herself to relieve tension.  
Simon had even tried to show Mother that part of the textbook, but she  
had been Opposed to Such Things and Not Having That Conversation with  
Simon. Nor River.

But that was a thing of the past, a time before the D'Arbanvilles and  
their endless dinner parties. Right now she is here, and she has nothing.

Nothing. No ident card. No books. No bra. No blanket. No stuffed animals.  
No hairbrush. No shirt. No dresses, no scrubs, no underwear, _nothing  
here and nothing there;_ no shoes, no coat, no pair of socks, _nothing  
at all for the girl in the box_...

Somebody gives her a blanket. It is scratchy, and came from sheep, and  
moths want to eat it. River waggles a finger through a moth-munchy-made  
hole, and pretends to chew the corner. "Baaa!" she says, and  
then remembers that moths don't say Baaa.

"Doctor Tam?" says the pretty girl on the table. She is a pretty-pretty  
girl, pretty inside and out, and not too keen on social convention. She  
is Not Opposed to Such Things, and woulda smacked River's momma upside  
her head for being a priss, if she and River's momma had squabbled on  
the playground about what girls were supposed to be like, just like Kaylee  
had smacked Lillette Dupree upside the head for saying girls were supposed  
to keep their skirts down and their hands out of the toolkit.

"Yes, Kaylee?"

"I thought maybe she'd need some clothes..." Pretty-pretty  
girl has a bundle of things in her mind, things she's grown out of, or  
doesn't think she can wear under her coveralls or when she's got her hands  
in the toolkit. And oh, she wants to Have That Conversation with Simon,  
but he's got Too Much on His Plate, and has No Time For Girls, not even  
pretty-pretty ones, not even pretty-pretty ones he threatened to let die.

Oh, Simon.

 _He didn't mean it._

There's a conversation going on above the theta level, and it's buzz-buzz-buzz  
like little bees, or maybe that's the sound that moths make, and the stone-silk  
woman is there with the bundle of clothes from Kaylee's mind, and River's  
suddenly wearing them: cheap cottons and synthetics in bright pinks; tight  
pants and little skirts and all manner of things that River didn't even  
know were options.

The shoes don't fit, though.

Stone-silk woman, who is as cool as a Manichaeist's cucumber except where  
Wash touches her, goes away and comes back and she has big boots that  
will fit River's feet. And River puts them on, and suddenly, she's tough.  
She can kick shit in these boots.

She still doesn't have an ident card, and she misses her books and tapes  
and stuffed animals. But she's got clothes and shoes and a brother--and  
freedom.

It's a fair trade.


End file.
